Student blogs

Hello everybody! Or should I say “hej hej” as my little Duolingo owl has been teaching me. My name is Grace and I am very excited to be here. 

Why am I here? Well, I am your new Facebook digital ambassador! I will be posting lots of cool stuff on the Karolinska Institute Student pages, to show you highlights of student life and the gorgeous city we are in.  

How did I end up here?

Ooh gosh, that is a long story. If we start right at the beginning, little 8 year old Grace living in a small leafy town outside of London decided that she wanted to be a Vet. Fast forward 10 years, and whilst I had been accepted to Vet school I needed to take a year out to resit one chemistry exam (I still hate chemistry, even now). I wanted to make the most of that year out, so I took a job working as the stores controller for a tech company. 

This was miles away from what I wanted to be doing (partying at university like the rest of my friends) but to my utter surprise I was loving it. It was such a shock to me that I could enjoy this- being in big meetings, having a say in the decisions that were made- that I started to wonder if I wanted a life away from the sterile surgery room that a Vet spent half their day in. If I wasn’t going to be a Vet, then I at least wanted an adventure of a different sort, and that’s how I ended up getting accepted to the bachelor programme in Biomedicine at KI.

Me, four years ago on Gamla Stan, in Stockholm to check out KI for the bachelor programme

Plot twist!

I didn’t do my bachelor’s at KI. I knew I wanted something with as little research focus as possible, so I looked around a little more and found Maastricht University, at the time the only other Uni offering Biomedical Science in English, and realised that they would let me do a minor in entrepreneurship and combine it with my studies. And that is how I ended up in a beautiful tiny city in the far south of the Netherlands for three years!

The river Maas and Hoge Brug in Maastricht

I planned on taking a few years after my bachelors to work, gain experience, and make my application to the MBE programme at KI as good as possible. But then… Brexit happened. If I wanted to be treated like an EU citizen, I had to get in this year, or else! So with my heart pounding, I wrote the best motivation letter I possibly could, and held my breath. 

I got accepted!! Cue frantic calls to parents and the sudden realisation that I need to get used to being cold. 

So that brings me here…

22 years old and doing this awesome programme that allows me to combine Biology with Business, and to forge a career with both in mind. I arrived in Stockholm at the end of September (thanks, COVID), shivering in the cold but very excited to get started. I can’t wait to share my adventures with you and to make the Facebook as good as it can be. 

Outside of Bioentrepreneurship, you can find me falling off a climbing wall, baking chocolate chip cookies, or answering questions from all of you! Please fire away with anything you’d like to know and I will do my best to write an accurate (or, at least, humorous answer).